Something's eating our veggies, Japan's calling

Well........ our garden is being eaten. Not by the Lady or the Man. By something, mysteriously. I think it's a caterpillar or slugs. We have been making progress with all the veggies except the basil!! SO sad considering that fact that I was looking forward to a plethora of basil and pesto this summer!! Dude.......

Our basil leaves have been eaten up and are hole-ly :( Boo, sad face. Don't know the exact cause either and it just seems to be our basil plant. A few holes here and there in the tomato and pea plants but pretty much everyone else is healthy! What's going on........

(The peas!! So healthy!)

(Yellow summer squash for grilling)

(YES!! Finally some cilantro!!! Salsa time!)

(nice leafy lettuce)

(Our swiss cheese, eaten up basils)

(tomato plant is thriving)

(there's a bunch of black dots on these)

(on the other hand, the Man has taken upon him to start a landscaping project and rip up the front yard. He's
putting mulch where the rose bushes are, rose bushes were prune by the Lady)

(Looks like a land mine!)

As for travelling, the Lady is leaving for Japan this weekend and can't be more excited!! Japan pictures to follow!! Time to eat some really good sushi and Bachan's home cooking!

Hungry already,
The Lady

Transplanting has started!

Finally, 1 month after we started building this raised bed planter (2.14.15), we filled up the planter with a mixture of soils and we transplanted and also planted some seeds! Yay progression! And it looks pretty rad too! I can't wait for the veggies to start growing. I have to put on a netting so animals can't get it to but it is pretty much complete. Now for the sun to do its work.

(Finally filled with lots of soil and worms!)

(The Man picking out WORMS from the garden....yuck)

(Transplanting has happened)

(I'm already out of space and I have so much more to plant!)

(It was so bloody hot this weekend, found
Little P in this odd position, pressed up against
the glass. Poor baby was so hot)

Impatient for some veggies,
The Lady

It's like Summer is here!

Holy moly, it is HOT! Well, at least today it is, and apparently this weekend it's going to be in the 90s!! That's record heat for March!

I love it though. Perks of being an LAer, the beautiful weather. And because of this gorgeous warm weather, my little seedlings have started to sprout!! I was so excited, it's funny. The smallest little thing like seeing sprouts made me so happy! Urban gardening has happened! This weekend I plan to transplant the plants into our planter. Yay, finally!

(My tomatoes in the garage)

(My tomatoes in the garage)

(Basil started sprouting too!)

(My Miraclegrow experiment - all of them have sprouted, indoors)

(My organic soil experiment - only 1 seedling has sprouted indoors)

(Even Little P thinks it's hot!)

Sweating,

The Lady

Valentine's Weekend Project: Planter Building

So here we go!! Here's basically our planter building process. Thursday evening we went to Home Depot and spent hours there (3 to be exact, ugh!) picking out wood, the exact wood, the exact cuts, the exact measurements. I hate planning at HD, but we do it so much! I drew it all out and we decided to go with Option 2, but of course, things changed at the store.

(My notes and drawings, and long planks of redwood)

(That's a lot of wood! Heavy too!)

(So we spent close to $200 (!!!) on redwood itself!! Yes, scary. A $200 planter is NOT worth it right?
Yes, it was alittle painful, but it's a learning experience. And yes, this is the Man's
jerry-ridged version of a truck again)

(Saturday morning, Valentine's day, got up early and got started! Spreading out the pieces in our garage)

(90 degree corners are important!)

(Spread out in our backyard)

(I actually helped quite a bit, I held down the planks and held them together while
the Man drilled in the screws. It was a team effort!)

(First level box done! Two more to go! Of course HD didn't cut all the pieces on
point, so we had some short, some long pieces. Annoying....)

(My clever Man made a template for all the screws to go in the same position on
every piece of wood! Made things go by so much faster, and looks even too!)

(And Voila! El Fin...not quite, but here's 3 levels of boxes! It came out GREAT!! Look how fantastic that looks!!!
Amazed that it actually came out great looking. And the redwood is beautiful)

(Now for the actual hard part...the lip or ledge on this planter. The Man had a hard time
mitering the edges and making it all come together)

(Well here it is!! We had to use the nail gun and some gorilla glue to hold the miter
edges together. This came out great. The 45 degrees actually came together quite well.
Gorilla glue is the only glue I will use for projects like this)

(Finished product! Looks AMAZING!!! Can't wait to get plants and dirt in there!)

Actually, we're not quite done yet....looks done but we're putting on a water sealer coat so the wood doesn't rot. Then we got to put the corner pieces on to hide the butt joints on the corners. Another aesthetic thing, not structural support.

Then we have to line the thing with liner, fill the whole thing up with soil (yes lots of it!) and then finally, finally we get to plant some seeds! Long process folks!

Determined,
The Lady